


Good Kids

by jade_rabbit



Series: The Jesse Chronicles [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: DAD76, Gen, Mercy76, an attempt was made to follow canon, friendship for everyone, i have a lot of feelings about mccree, implied violence but no obvious gore, mercy76 if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jade_rabbit/pseuds/jade_rabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During which Jesse muses on 76's identity and realizes how invaluable (and familiar) the new recruit is. Shameless Dad76, Mercy76 if you squint really hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Kids

A hat was useful. Not only was it good against the sun (and obviously looked cool), but it made most people believe that you weren’t paying attention to them if your eyes were hidden from view. Jesse shamelessly used that technique whenever he could – just find a comfortable spot, sprawl, and casually tilt his hat forward. It was incredible how fast people forgot about him if they dismissed him as that lazy cowboy in the corner.

He figured it’d work on Soldier: 76 if he hung around the soldier long enough. It was Jesse’s unique way of keeping tabs on the new recruit because no one was really at ease around him. 

Unsurprisingly, all the Recall agents were nervous when Soldier: 76 joined their ranks. His reputation as a dangerous vigilante was well-known and the man himself was intimidating and unapproachable. Reinhardt, who commonly embraced friends with bone-crushing hugs, gave the soldier a suspicious one-over and a curt nod when they were first introduced. Torb was more fascinated by the soldier’s weapons than the man himself. Pharah was visibly on edge around him, but Zarya seemed convinced she could take him, so she barely gave him any notice. Lena was determined to befriend the stranger, but her cheerful efforts were usually rebuffed by a long, silent look from behind that glowing red visor.

On the battlefield, Soldier: 76 was as efficient was he was terrifying. He moved like a man half his size, rebounded from hits that would have shattered the bones of a regular man and had enough endurance to leave the other humans on the team panting and wheezing behind him. Jesse recalled when being physically bested by soldiers many years his senior was an everyday occurrence and found himself eyeing Soldier: 76 with growing suspicion. _I’m gonna eat my socks if you’re not a super soldier._ That term alone brought up painful memories of a happier, better time at Overwatch, so Jesse kept such thoughts to himself.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful to have Soldier: 76 on the Recall team, because he was. The soldier fought alongside him (or realistically, in front of him) without a word of complaint and was a surprisingly good team player. He always seemed to know when someone was missing or had wandered off from the group, and he’d often be the first to retrieve them, barking out orders for the others to follow while he was gone.

The team collectively followed his orders without question, despite never having made him their unofficial leader. Maybe it was due to the fact that the soldier always knew what he was doing, or maybe it was due to the fact that he had this incredibly commanding _tone_ that left no room for questions.

 _Or maybe_ , Jesse realized suddenly, _it’s because we’re used to taking orders already._

Morrison, Reyes and Amari were all gone, leaving Overwatch Recall struggling with well-intentioned but relatively inexperienced leaders. Winston was a scientist with little field experience, Lena was too young and Mercy was a doctor, not a soldier. Reinhardt and Torb had politely declined to lead the team due to age and speed reasons, and the remaining members were too new to Overwatch understand how to control a group this large and diverse. 

 _We’d be dead without him,_ Jesse noted grimly as he struggled to keep up with the soldier’s speed, _He’s exactly what we needed._

Something about that made him even more suspicious.

~-~-~-~-~

One of their early missions as a Recall team had gone very, very wrong. No one died (which, back in the old days, would have been considered a miracle), but even Jesse was shaken as he carefully approached the smoking remains of DVa’s crumpled mech.

Soldier: 76 was already there, his massive pulse rifle laying off to the side in a heap of glass and rubble. Jesse took one glance at it and knew he had used it to manually beat open the cockpit doors. The soldier had already pulled the girl from the wreck and had curled up against the shadow of her mech with her small body in his arms.

Jesse let out a shaky breath when he saw the girl’s legs stirring. _No need to bury another agent today._

He stepped closer to help, but Soldier: 76 lifted a silent hand to keep him at a distance. Jesse soon noticed why – Hana’s thin frame was shaking and he could hear soft, tiny sobs despite her best attempts to hide them in 76’s jacket. She was trying to cope with the rush of adrenaline, relief, and horror that naturally came after surviving something terrible. Jesse had seen the reaction many times before, but it was never easy to watch, particularly from those who were barely old enough to fight. 

Soldier: 76 cradled the girl with one arm and was gingerly using his other hand to feel for injuries, starting with the matted blood in her hair. To Jesse’s surprise, he was speaking to Hana in a low, soothing voice that sounded nothing like the gruff, curt man he was used to hearing in battle.

“Favorite food?” the soldier asked, as if asking about the color of the sky. (Jesse suddenly realized he had interrupted a conversation that had been going on for some time.)

Hana hiccupped into the thick leather jacket. “Doritos, I guess,” she answered in a distant tone.

Soldier: 76 chuckled, a deep, surprisingly warm sound in his chest. “Why not something healthier, like Winston’s bananas?”

“I don’t like fruit,” Hana protested weakly, “Except fruit candy. I g-guess those are okay.” She whimpered as he touched a sore spot on her head. “Is it bad?” she whispered.

“I’ve seen far worse,” the soldier said quietly as he parted her hair to study the oozing gash.

Hana relaxed at that. “I’m tired,” she mumbled drowsily into his shoulder. 

The soldier let out a muffled grunt. “I know,” he murmured, “Stay with me, kid. Keep talkin’.”

“Why?” Hana complained, understandably irritated.

 _He’s monitoring your speech patterns,_ Jesse remembered from his Blackwatch training.

“You have to stay awake until Mercy comes to check on you,” 76 explained with the steely patience of someone who had been through this discussion many times before. 

As if on cue, a golden light from above began to descend on them, growing brighter by the second. Jesse tilted his hat up at the sky in acknowledgement, grinning as he admired the beautiful woman in orange and white floating down from the sky. He had seen Angela at work a million times at this point, but she never ceased to amaze him, nor would she ever cease to look like a literal angel to those she was saving.

Hana stirred and turned a dazed, tear-streaked face toward the approaching light. Her pained expression melted in into relief as the healing glow immediately filled her aching body with warmth. “Angie’s the best,” she whispered to no one in particular.

Soldier: 76 looked up as well. His masked face was unreadable, but there was a strange elegance to the way his red visor briefly reflected the gold of Mercy’s light. “Yeah,” he agreed, so quietly that Jesse could barely hear him through the mask, “She is.”

Jesse felt something prick at the back of his mind. This seemed so… familiar. He had _seen_ it before, in a different place and time.

Years ago, he had stumbled upon Jack Morrison trying to comfort a young Overwatch agent in the shadows of an overturned van. Jesse had been limping toward the medics himself with a badly twisted ankle, but he remembered being unable to look away as Morrison –in his glorious blue and black uniform- lowered himself on his knees next to the injured young man. A medic was working frantically on the man’s profusely bleeding hip and ignored the commander’s presence, but the soldier’s face was all sorts of awe-struck.

“Uh-huh,” Morrison was saying as Jesse limped by. His tone was casual despite the blood soaking into his uniform. “Tell me about her.”

“Black hair,” The young soldier gasped as the medic pressed down hard, “B-Blue eyes. Great singing voice. W-We were stationed in Paris together.”

“Paris is a lovely place,” Morrison agreed, gloved hand on the soldier’s sweating forehead as if to offer physical comfort, “Have you been together long?”

“Yeah. I-I’m going to marry her, sir.”

There was a long pause. Morrison’s voice was soft when he spoke again. “I’m sure you will. When will you propose?”

“W-Well, I was going to… after this mission…” The young man’s voice cracked and his voice shrank to a whisper. He reached out suddenly to grab Morrison’s coat, smearing bright on the thick blue fabric. “Sir, if I don’t make it, will you tell her t-that I meant to-”

“Nonsense, soldier,” Morrison replied firmly, glancing at the medic, “You’re going to ask her yourself, with or without this leg.”

The medic paused in her efforts and met his eyes, then averted them rapidly as she went back to work.

With a chill, Jesse wondered how bad it was. Was the soldier bleeding out? Was his leg shattered? Gone? He really couldn’t tell.

Morrison looked back down at the young man, determination flashing in his eyes. “Don’t worry about the leg, Anton. We have Dr. Ziegler now, she’ll get you patched up.”

The young soldier’s fist trembled where it had a death grip on Morrison’s coat. Despite the pain on his face, his voice was hopeful as he digested this information. “I-I’ve heard she’s good.”

Jesse could _sense_ the Commander’s amusement despite the distance between them. “She’s the best,” Morrison insisted, “Now, tell me about this proposal you have planned. I hope it’s classier than what Mosen pulled off last year.”

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, Jesse limped off to find a medic of his own.

That memory of Morrison, drenched in blood and knelt over an injured soldier behind a truck, stuck with him for years. He silently treasured it. It was a symbol of how far he had come and the quality of the men and women he now worked with.

Out West, nobody stopped for anybody, and you were simply left to die if you weren’t able to keep up with the rest of the gang. If you were lucky, you’d be put out of your misery first so you didn’t spill secrets to the authorities. Morrison –and Overwatch- didn’t believe in such ideas. They operated like a true military unit, and like in the military, no soldier got left behind, no matter how young and inexperienced.

 _And behind every idiot charging off to war,_ Jesse noted dryly, _There’s an overworked medic trying to save their life._ He watched fondly as Angela landed and immediately got to work fussing over Hana. She pulled the girl from the soldier’s arms and laid her on the floor, then leaned over her and bathed her with golden light from her wings. When the blinding light subsided, Hana seemed sound asleep, but the gash in her head was mended and the grimace of pain on her face was gone.

“This will hold her until we get back to base,” Angela said with finality, sounding exhausted as she sat back on her knees and admired her handiwork. She turned her attention to Soldier: 76, who –upon realizing his assistance was no longer needed- stood and brushed off his jacket as if trying to brush off everything he had just done.

“Wait,” Angela stood and snagged his large hands, studying the blood soaked gloves with a furrowed brow. “Are you…?”

“Hana’s,” the soldier explained with a shrug of his big shoulders.

Angela’s eyes remained fixed on the drying blood on his hands. “A child’s blood,” she echoed sadly, looking like the weight of the world had fallen on her shoulders, “We still fight wars with children.”

The soldier was quiet for a long moment before he carefully pulled his hands out of hers. “Then they can’t fight alone,” he said gruffly, stepping away to retrieve his gun.

There was an unspoken promise in his words that made Mercy’s tired face break out into a genuine smile behind his back. “I’ll go summon the van,” she said, lifting off gracefully and hovering a few feet above the ground. “I’ll need you two to get her to street level.”

Soldier: 76 paused and looked at Jesse, who stared back. Rolling his eyes, the cowboy threw up his hands in a half-hearted complaint. “You’ve got the big ol’ gun, I suppose I’ll get sleeping beauty.”

Mercy nodded and took off into the sky.

Jesse made his way to Hana’s side and knelt, carefully scooping her into his arms. She was completely limp, so it took him a second or two to shrug her head on to his shoulder. He spotted boots out of the corner of his vision and looked up to see Soldier: 76 hovering anxiously over him.

“Relax, soldier,” Jesse sighed as he stood with his precious cargo, “I got this.” _For some vigilante we dug out of god-knows-where, you seem to care an awful lot_.

“She’s a good kid,” the soldier grunted.

“Yeah, well, Overwatch tends to find the best kids,” Jesse would have shrugged if his arms were free. “Then I suppose there’s me.”

The soldier raised one white –or was that blond?- brow and turned that intensely glowing visor toward Jesse. “What _about_ you?” he asked slowly.

Jesse played along. “Didn’t you read my file when you joined?” he chuckled as started his slow way over the crushed mech and the heap of rubble that blocked their path to the main road. “I wasn’t exactly a genius gamer like this missy here.”

The soldier was quiet for a while. “You left,” he pointed out, “but then you came back. Why?”

Of all things for the soldier to pick out of his file, Jesse didn’t expect _that_. He froze in mid-step. How _did_ he make the decision to come back? Was it possible to put that emotional turmoil into words? He wanted to say something casual like ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’, but that would be a lie, and this soldier didn’t seem like the type to buy into lies.

Jesse looked down at Hana, sleeping peacefully in his arms. “This team’s lost too many members already,” he said quietly. “Nobody else is dyin’ on my watch.”

A large hand landed on his unoccupied shoulder and gave it a strong squeeze. Jesse sent the other a confused look as the soldier swept by, pistol slung casually over one shoulder.

“Good kid,” the soldier grunted before disappearing from view over a heap of rubble.

It took Jesse a second to realize he didn’t mean Hana. 

**Author's Note:**

> Jesse kidnapped my brain and I wrote this in a frenzy over the course of a few hours, so I apologize for any obvious typos. 
> 
> This will be continued in other one-shots since I really like how Jesse has the ability to bond with both old and new Overwatch members due to his age / history.


End file.
